Ten Minute Flick School: Fast, Cheap, and in Control (2004 Video) User Reviews

Interesting

[rbverhoef · 7/10 · 24 August 2004]

'Ten Minute Flick School: Fast, Cheap and in Control' helps making the movie 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico' more interesting. It shows us how certain scenes were created using digital cameras and digital techniques.

Director Robert Rodriguez explains to us how he used the digital things to speed up certain things and how he made things cheaper. There are some interesting tricks he uses like mixing to shots together and erasing parts out of the images.

Although this short extra is not really needed it helped me to appreciate 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico, a movie not very great, a little more.

Good concise breakdown of how some of the digital effects of the film were done, and Robert provides a few more tips

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 7/10 · 13 April 2007]

The first Ten Minute Film School was about how to make a movie out of nearly no money at all... explaining how Rodriguez managed to make El Mariachi work with the shoe-string budget and the lack of a crew. The second was about how he made his first studio picture work, with a lot less time and resources than most major action films. Here, it's moved a bit beyond what these started as... yes, it's still low-budget, but the "low" is now $29 million, not $7,000. And while it is still mainly Rodriguez' work, he now does have a crew, and professional equipment. What is nothing short of impressive is how he rises to the occasion each time; on the first, he created an indie action film that felt much, much bigger than anything low budget. On the second, he made his first professionally backed action movie look as well-done as seasoned directors in the field such as John Woo(who was clearly an influence). And here, on the third, with technology offering tons of special effects that look good, he still manages to bring it in under budget, and make a movie that is every bit as intense as the movies that cost 5-10 times what he spent. Most of what he tells us here is not as much useful for aspiring film-makers as it is a good insight into how he pulled off certain effects. However, there are still tips to be found... more, I'd say, than was in the former Film School, the one focusing on Desperado. He shows us how to make the best of a location, how to safely do stunts that could be incredibly dangerous, and how to make the various shootouts and such look amazing and strong. The thing is, apart from maybe the first, all of this is only available to those filming in digital, and with access to CGI/animation programs of fairly high caliber. It's still fun to watch, and time still flies by due to his expert editing... but I doubt it'll inspire as much indie film-making as the last two, due to the cost of the hardware(and software) required to pull something off that even looks remotely as impressive. This certainly isn't bad if you want to know how stuff in Once Upon a Time in Mexico was achieved... but if you're looking for useful tips for film-making, I suggest the second film school, and to a greater extent, the first one. Definitely worth watching, but offers less than the first two efforts. Coming in at not much less than ten minutes, this is worth it for anyone interested in these documentaries that Robert does. I recommend it to any fan of the movie, Rodriguez in general and anyone who have had their curiosity sparked from reading this review. 7/10

I liked it more than I thought I would

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 23 February 2019]

This is "Ten Minute Flick School: Fast, Cheap, and in Control", a pretty long title for a rather short film. The director and narrator is Robert Rodriguez and this is not his only "Ten Minute School" video by far. It was reelased back in 2004, so it has its 15th anniversary this year and is closely related to Rodriguez' film "Once Upon a Time in Mexico", but not in the sense of a behind the scenes work or making-of, but something unique instead. And if you know Rodriguez and his close connection with Tarantino), then you also kno that R-Rod is one of the more unique and creative filmmakers working these days. I think it may be a good idea to watch this little documentary right after the film it is linked to. Certainly not before because it includes major spoilers about certain characters' deaths among others. You will see crucial moments and scenes here and how those were put into effect. These involve basically all key players like Cheech Marin, Johnny Depp, Antonio Banderas and Selma Hayek. Rodriguez' narration is fast and spot-on. And still he manages to make this also a good watch for people who have absolutely no connection to filmmaking themselves. I thought it was creative and insightful and if you make your own movies, you will probably enjoy it even more. Sure there will be people who say they knew it all and saw it immediately how it was done, but yeah these are always there and shall be ignored. By the way, very fitting that this only runs for 9 minutes despite the title. Nothing is what it seems here. And that is a really good thing. Go watch this one, but like I said not before you have watched the movie.